The event of a fire in Moscow in 1812 is understood as a fire that occurred in the capital in the period September 14-18. At that time the city was occupied by French troops. The fire engulfed almost the entire central part and reached the outskirts. Three-quarters of the wooden buildings were destroyed.
There is more than one version of why a fire broke out in Moscow during the war of 1812. According to the one that was announced by the tsarist government at the official level, it occurred due to the actions of the invaders. Some historians believe that the head of Moscow, Fyodor Rostopchin, is involved in this. Be that as it may, this incident was the largest of the fires that occurred in Russian cities in the 19th century. Briefly about the fire in Moscow in 1812 will be described in the article.
Initiation and distribution
According to eyewitnesses, the fire in Moscow in 1812 began on September 14 in the evening. Kitay-gorod, Solyanka, the territory behind the Yauza bridge became the first places of its origin. Fightersthe retreating Russian army was watching the ominous glow from afar.
During the night, the fire intensified much, engulfing most of the capital. This was because almost all the buildings in it were wooden. Including the noble estates, which outwardly looked like stone. In fact, they consisted of a wooden frame covered with a thick layer of plaster. At the same time, such buildings managed to burn down even faster than the two-story huts of old Moscow.
In Kitay-gorod, the only building that was not touched by the fire was the Orphanage. Chief caretaker I. A. Tutolmin, together with his subordinates, saved him, having managed to put out the fire around him. As for other places, it was not possible to stop the fire in them. On the contrary, it only intensified. And the inhabitants of the city who were in it at that time, trying to escape from the disaster that befell them, moved from one house to the next.
From the memoirs of Nanny Herzen
One of the "witnesses" of the fire was A. I. Herzen. Since he was not even a year old then, in his memoirs the writer cites the nurse's story about what happened in the city. After their house caught fire, the Herzen family decided to go to their friends, the Golokhvastovs. All together, gentlemen and servants, went out to Tverskoy Boulevard and here they saw that the trees had begun to burn. When we reached the right house, the fire was already escaping from all its windows.
Besides the fire, being pursued and other dangers (these were drunken soldiers who sought to take possession of the money andto take away the last horse or sheepskin coat), the family with all the children and household tried to find a new shelter. Hungry and completely exhausted people made their way to some surviving house and stayed to rest in it. However, less than an hour later, screams were heard from the street that this building had already been engulfed in flames.
In the royal chambers
One of the interesting facts about the fire of 1812 in Moscow is the “quiet” night spent by Napoleon in the Kremlin. On the night of September 15, the French emperor learned about the fire that had raged in the Russian capital. As the diplomat Caulaincourt wrote, he was unstoppable. There were absolutely no funds at hand, and it was not known where to get fire pumps.
The French believed that the necessary fire-fighting equipment was taken out of the city in accordance with the order of Rostopchin. Marshal Mertier was appointed governor-general of Moscow, and Bonaparte ordered him to put out the fire at all costs. It was not possible to carry out this in full, but the fire was still contained on Red Square. Napoleon spent this “quiet” night in the chambers belonging to the Russian tsars.
Giant oven
At first, the French did not realize that almost the entire city was on fire. It seemed to them that only some of the buildings were on fire. The soldiers and officers were sure that the fire would soon be put out. All the destruction they attributed to the Cossacks. However, the fire in Moscow in 1812 was getting bigger. Gostiny Dvor, according to an eyewitness, began to look like a gigantic stove with thick clouds of smoke escaping from it andflames.
Marshal Murat and his retinue settled in the house of Batashev, an industrialist and philanthropist. This building was also on fire. Along with the French, Batashev's people also put out the fire. Although the house itself was defended, the estate was badly damaged: all the wooden buildings were burned to the ground.
On a terrible night from September 15 to 16, a strong wind blew, growing into a real storm. Its impulses carried the flames to all parts of the city. In just a few hours, the fiery ocean swallowed Solyanka, Mokhovaya, Arbat and Prechistenka.
Fantastic view
Another eyewitness to the fire in Moscow in 1812, observing it from a somewhat remote village, described it as follows. The picture was terrible. The huge sky was filled with a bright purple light, which seemed to be the backdrop for the whole picture. Bright white jets, reminiscent of snakes, twisted and twisted on it.
Burning smuts of various sizes, which had a bizarre shape, and strange, fantastic-looking red-hot objects first rose in a mass, and then fell back, scattering with fiery splashes.
It seemed that a whole field of enormous size was suddenly dotted with many continuous volcanoes that spewed combustible substances and streams of flame. Even the most skillful of pyrotechnicians could not come up with a more whimsical firework than Moscow, the heart of Russia, engulfed in flames.
Napoleon's departure
The fire in Moscow in 1812 again began to threaten the Kremlin. Bonaparte beforedid not understand the full scale of what was happening. Absorbed in his thoughts, he watched the capital from a high terrace. It is possible that he did this with a feeling of deep sorrow. After all, the destruction of the city entailed the collapse of his hopes.
As contemporaries recalled, one day during this lesson he began to regret that Moscow no longer exists. That he forfeited the reward he had promised his army. However, the emperor refused to leave the Kremlin, despite the persuasion of those around him to do so. The emperor succumbed to persuasion at the last moment, when the Trinity Tower had already begun to burn - it was extinguished by the French guard.
But now getting out of the Kremlin was not at all easy. All the gates of the fortress were blocked by fire. Finally, they managed to find an underground passage leading to the Moscow River, through which the emperor and his retinue escaped. However, now they could not move forward, as they came close to the fire. It was impossible to stay still. As a result, Napoleon and his people were only able to reach the Petrovsky Palace late at night.
Moscow after the fire of 1812
On September 17th, the flames continued to rage, but in the evening it began to rain heavily, and the wind began to subside. On the 18th, the fires largely ceased. The rain was pouring non-stop, and now Moscow was a spectacle of a very sad nature.
It no longer had the former brilliance. A vast conflagration with protruding chimneys, heaps of stones, ruins and blocks of earth brought down by explosions came off to the eye. For all thisit was impossible to watch without shuddering.
Who set fire to the city?
Today, the question of the causes of the fire of 1812 in Moscow remains open. There are three main versions.
- This was done by the French military in order to make it easier to plunder the capital. The mayor of Moscow, Rostopchin, insisted on this version.
- The French and some Russians blamed Rostopchin and his supporters for the arson. They believed that on his orders they made rockets and other flammable substances, fireballs. The capital was supposedly supposed to become a huge infernal machine that, suddenly exploding at night, would swallow the emperor along with his army.
- The version of spontaneous combustion is also not ruled out, which looks quite real given the confrontation between the armies in wooden Moscow.
Restoration of Moscow after the fire of 1812
It took more than 20 years to rebuild the capital after the destruction.
Emperor Alexander I in 1813, in February, established a special commission for this, which was abolished only after 30 years. It was headed by F. Rostopchin. O. Bove was responsible for the architecture, E. Cheliev for the engineering part.
In 1813-14 redevelopment of Red Square. The destroyed towers and walls were restored here. In 1821-22. near them, in memory of the victory over the French, the Alexander Garden was laid out. According to the new plan, the Kremlin was to be surrounded by a ring of squares, one of which was Bolotnaya.
Many homeowners ravaged by fire: afterIt was the redistribution of Moscow lands on a massive scale. For example, plots located on Maroseyka became the property of merchants. To help the victims, a commission was created to consider petitions from those who went bankrupt during the enemy invasion.
The housing stock of Moscow was almost completely restored by the beginning of 1816. During the reconstruction, a specific Moscow classicism was formed. Specialists note the special plasticity of the architectural forms of the newly built mansions.
Many streets, including the Garden Ring, have expanded. Due to lack of funds and building materials, wooden houses continued to be built. Some of these buildings, which have an Empire decor, have survived to this day.
The Moscow fire is described in many literary works, for example, in "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy.
